A St. Paul Public Schools field trip for students of color has been canceled after a federal civil rights complaint was made in response to the trip by a Mendota Heights man alleging racial discrimination against “students who are not ‘of color.’”
Mark Perry, who works for organizations Do No Harm and The Equal Protection Project, asked the U.S. Department of Education’s Chicago Office for Civil Rights on Tuesday to open a Title VI investigation into Highland Park Senior High School in relation to the field trip.
Now that the trip is canceled, Perry said he plans to withdraw the complaint once a case number is assigned to it. He said he was hoping that the trip would either be canceled or opened to all students.
The digital marketing and advertising field trip, originally scheduled for Thursday, would have been to Betty, a marketing agency in Minneapolis, according to a description of the field trip shared with students. The trip was for 11th and 12th grade students who “identify as a student of color,” according to the description.
The BrandLab, the Minneapolis-based nonprofit organization sponsoring the trip, was working with Highland Park High School to find 11th and 12th-grade students interested in attending a field trip, according to The BrandLab CEO Kelli Williams.
“The organization has been in existence for over 15 years and is committed to inclusivity in marketing and advertising, truly representing the world we live in,” Williams said in the statement. “One of our programs provides exposure opportunities for high school students to learn more about the advertising and marketing professions through field trips to local agencies and businesses.”
“We are working to find Highland Park High School an opportunity to attend a field trip before the end of the school year,” Williams added.
In a statement on the field trip, Erica Wacker, a St. Paul Public Schools spokesperson, said: “Saint Paul Public Schools values our partnerships with community organizations like The BrandLab and the opportunities they provide for our students. The district remains committed to providing post-secondary and career-related opportunities for all of our students to pursue their passions.”
Perry has a long history of filing discrimination complaints, most of which have targeted college scholarships and programs for women and girls. His complaints alleging violations of Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination, had led to 157 investigations and about 50 resolutions, mostly in his favor, he told the Pioneer Press in 2021.
Since 2021, he said the complaints he has filed have involved about half Title IX and half Title VI. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex.
Though Perry files federal civil rights complaints regularly in his work with Do No Harm and the Equal Protection Project, he said he filed the complaint against the high school as an individual.
Perry said the trip’s cancellation was typical in his experience.
“So I think it’s either some combination of unawareness of federal civil rights laws and then another part of just a lack of concern about federal civil rights laws when they think that they can do some good for some group of students, in this case,” Perry said.
Perry also asked the U.S. Department of Education’s Chicago Office for Civil Rights in April to open a Title IX investigation into the district in response to a district summer learning program for girls which he said “excludes and discriminates against binary, non-female identifying students based on their sex and gender identity.”
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